How to use the 'Listen' button

ReadSpeaker allows the text on the website to be read out loud to you. It provides you assistance if you have trouble reading text online. By having the text read out loud to you, you can understand the information on the website more easily. This makes the content more accessible and the website more pleasant to visit. As a user you don’t have to download anything.

How does it work?

Listen to the main content

You simply click the Listen button to listen to the webpage's content:

An audio player appears (see image below) and ReadSpeaker starts reading the text of the webpage out loud.

In the player you can:

Pause/restart the reading

Stop the reading

Use the progress bar to navigate in the audio

Adjust the volume

Click the settings icon to adjust the behaviour of the service

Click the download icon to download the audio file

Close the player

You can use tab/shift+tab to navigate inside the player and press enter to activate a certain button or link.

Listen to selected text

You can select a part of the text that you want to listen to and then press the pop-up Listen button that appears next to the mouse pointer. When you click the pop-up Listen button, an audio player appears (see the image below) and ReadSpeaker starts reading the text you have selected.

Settings

In the settings menu, you can:

Choose whether you want to have the text highlighted while ReadSpeaker read

Choose whether you want the text highlighted on a word and sentence basis, sentence only, or word only

Choose style and colours for the highlighting

Choose whether to display the current sentence at the bottom of the page, with a larger font size and simultaneous text highlighting

Choose whether you want the reading speed to be slow, medium, or fast

Choose whether you want the page to scroll automatically to follow the highlighted text

Choose whether you want the pop-up Listen button to be shown when text is selected

Restore all settings to original defaults

You can also listen to the settings by clicking the Listen button at the top right of the Settings menu.

Media & resources

Information

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The Australia Day Council of NSW acknowledges we are living and working on Aboriginal land and recognises the strength, resilience and capacity of Aboriginal people on this land. The Council would like to acknowledge all of the traditional owners of the land, and pay respect to Aboriginal Elders past, present and future.